Tackle Your Feelings is delighted to welcome former AFL coach and player Nathan Buckley as an ambassador for the program.
Buckley participated in his first Tackle Your Feelings program delivery in July and he will share his own mental health story in an exclusive video produced by the TYF team (to be released next week).
Coaches will have the opportunity to meet Buckley when he appears in a Tackle Your Feelings webinar, in partnership with CoachAFL, on the night of Tuesday August 16. Details on how you can register for this session will be communicated via a separate email next week.
Buckley, 49, stepped down as the coach of Collingwood during the 2021 season after 218 games in charge of the club where he is one of its greatest ever players
TYF program manager Nick Walsh said it was a huge coup for the program to attract another high quality person, and coach, as an ambassador.
“We are blessed to have ‘Bucks’ join Leon and Clarko as our coach ambassadors. Tackle Your Feelings is proud to be able to play a role to connect community coaches with elite level coaches to learn more about how they can implement what they have learned about mental health through our program. Bucks has some great insights into mental health from his journey as a player and coach.”
One of the key learnings Buckley wants to pass onto community coaches is the role they can play in creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable and conversations can easily flow.
“If you’re in a leadership role or if you’re in a position of influence, I think the most important thing that you can do, is to show that you are not bulletproof, to show that you are human and to facilitate and allow, within your environment, that it’s okay to not be perfect and it’s okay to not be a ten out of ten all the time,” Buckley told Tackle Your Feelings.